Their End Is Nigh (Begin Sound Effects)
by Manchester
Summary: Buffy once received a Word-A-Day desk calendar as a birthday gift from Dawn, and one special entry this Slayer came across in there perfectly described what was waiting for her if a certain chaos magic spell ever got cast: Ignominy.


This was it.

The Apocalypse of Apocalypses.

Not just the Mother of All Battles, but rather the Mother, Grandmother, Mother-In-Law and Aunt Mabel (the one we don't ever talk to because of what she said when our Nellie inherited Tante Gretchen's silver dinner service) of All Battles.

An increasing sick sensation now in her stomach, Buffy Summers looked out at the endless host of demons reaching far beyond the desert horizon of the Sahara wasteland, and she knew they were going to lose. All of them: the remaining Scoobies, the women warriors known as Slayers, the Watchers, and every one of the allies brought along by the New Council for a final desperate battle to save humanity from being overrun by a horde of monsters thirsting for their enemies' extinction.

That is...unless she finally revealed her awful secret, the very one which Buffy had been hiding from this specific Slayer's friends and family ever since a particular Halloween in Sunnydale so many years ago.

* * *

From then on, after finding out she'd retained a supremely ludicrous souvenir of Ethan Rayne's chaos magic, Buffy would occasionally stare at what was responsible for this, the small lucky charm dangling from its necklace, bracelet, or anklet (whichever was best for concealing it at the moment). The little memento of a cheap plastic keychain was a treasured prize from the very last year when the Summers had been a happy, close family in Los Angeles. At the time, a just-turned-fourteen Buffy along with her mom and dad visited the LA County Fair in Pomona the weekend before school started in September.

Looking forward to getting out of junior high at last, Buffy had been bouncing around the house with maniac energy for weeks now, and this continued throughout their excursion to the fair and its attractions. So much, in fact, that when Hank Summers won a minor keepsake at one of the midway game booths (a single balloon popped with a thrown dart), he gleefully picked out a very special trinket for this father to tease his daughter over being so excited.

Accepting with delight her new gift in the very affectionate spirit of which it'd been placed around her wrist, Buffy wore the little charm for the rest of the day at the fair. But, it didn't stop there. She kept on doing the same thing when attending high school, with good reason. This had started off as a pleasant habit, yet when her dad began working late at the office and a resulting coldness descended between Hank and Joyce, Buffy clung to her little present as a reminder of better days for their fracturing family. Even when proudly attaining the position of the Queen of Hemery High, the blonde cheerleader still concealed her utterly tacky accessory throughout everything. Which, of course, included the point when Buffy also became the Slayer.

For the next several years, that lucky charm always accompanied a young girl moving to Sunnydale with her now-divorced mother, meeting several people who'd become the most important part of her unique life, and finally dressing up one night in a noblewoman's gown during Halloween. At that instance, Buffy unthinkingly slipped the charm into a handy skirt pocket, since it certainly didn't go with the rest of her antique garments.

Several days later after the costume was thankfully stuffed into the nearest garbage bin and the French accent had entirely faded away, Buffy learned for the first time that chaos magic could be much sneakier than she'd have ever possibly guessed. Fortunately, she was alone then on her patrol and, well, this _was_ Sunnydale. Nobody paid any attention whatsoever to even the most peculiar noises here, especially when they came from one of the town's numerous graveyards in the middle of the night.

An incredulous girl going off to find the strictest privacy available for investigating this latest bit of Hellmouth weirdness without also waking up everybody within earshot eventually learned all she could about her newfound transformation and abilities. Once this was done, Buffy next vowed to never, ever demonstrate these truly potent talents to the Scooby Gang. Or, come to think of it, _anyone_ else in the whole wide world, no matter how bad things might turn out in the future!

Buffy kept her promise. Angelus, the Judge, Glory, the Mayor, the First - it didn't matter how hopeless it got, Buffy determinedly did the best she could as the Slayer. Because, inothing/i would ever force her to use the lucky charm now hilariously imbued with a touch of chaos magic that when employed would also make Buffy Summers the laughingstock of the entire planet!

To prove how seriously she felt about this, Buffy died at the end of her battle against a certain skanky hellgoddess without even considering changing into _that._ Hey, if it came to an actual choice of death or a total loss of her dignity, bring on the white robes, wings, halo, and harp!

Afterwards, a saddened Dawn placed the little charm into Buffy's jewelry box. The Key's fake memories included how much her departed sister loved this small treasure, so an unaware Dawn of exactly why this charm was just as magically special as the younger girl created by the Monks of Dagon added the rather worn and shabby piece of plastic to Buffy's other knickknacks. In the course of events, a reincarnated Buffy numbly wore it again, until her recovering awareness recognized just what had come back to plague the Slayer for a second time.

The Scoobies tiptoeing around Buffy around then, all too conscious of their transgression of yanking a friend away from her peaceful rest, never noticed how a little bit of the young woman's previous intrepid attitude had returned when Buffy glowered at the bathroom mirror in the Revello house. There, dangling from her neck, that damn taunting piece of junk had its arms raised and ready for action, just like it'd always done so since she'd acquired this image of pressed plastic made in China.

Buffy's eyes narrowed. She could actually feel the tiny spark of chaos magic still there, eager to get free and turn Joyce Summers' daughter into the biggest joke of the century. Well, like hell she would! She'd been alive, and then dead, and next back to life once more...and in all that, there was now something truly worse waiting for her than any of the other strangeness currently going on for Buffy Summers.

Unknowingly recapturing a fraction of her former assertive Slayer mood not seen lately by Xander, Giles, Willow and Dawn, Buffy rudely stuck out her tongue at the mirror. She next growled under her breath at both the lucky charm and the universe itself, "Yeah, right. That's all I need now, turning into iyou./i Don't bet on it, buster. Just to prove I'll never give in, you're gonna come along with me constantly! So what do you think of that, huh? _Huh?_"

Again, Buffy kept her word. In the ensuing years, that little trinket went through everything the newly-risen Slayer endured, all the crises, battles, and destruction. So when Buffy pursued and caught the last bus out of Sunnydale, the lucky charm was the only personal thing she saved from this collapsing city.

* * *

And now, nearly a decade later with all her comrades standing by the Slayer, Buffy Summers knew with a horrible certainty that it was at long last the day of her doom. Giving such an anguished groan of utter defeat that this doleful whimper attracted the others' attention, they watched in mutual growing bafflement how Buffy took one hand off the Scythe to reach down the front of her blouse with this now free hand. From there, the woman in her early thirties yanked out something which the rest of the Scoobies had earlier seen so often they'd long ago accepted it and never paid any further attention, a small plastic charm.

Before anyone could actually ask why she'd done that, Buffy then glumly announced out loud, "Guys, just stay here, will you? I'll take care of all those stupid demons over there, who're really going to pay for this!"

Jaws dropped throughout both the small group surrounding the Slayer and also everyone else within range who'd heard that. It was Xander who recovered first, to begin exclaiming, "Buffy, you can't be serious! What's-"

Through gritted teeth, an increasingly-cranky Buffy snarled an interrupting, "Shut _up,_ Xan! That goes for the rest of you, too! Keep in mind that even after two kids I can still thoroughly kick every one of your butts, so nobody better dare make fun of me when I come back from using Ethan's last little present from that damn Halloween!"

Without any further ado, Buffy faced forward to ignore her friends gaping at the Slayer. She closed her eyes, and for the first time before actual witnesses, the chaos magic was let loose.

In a brilliant flash of pure white light, Buffy's entire body was covered with this illumination, which lasted only a split second. Blinking away the dots in their vision caused by this unexpected radiance, the New Council forces stared in disbelief at where their commander had seemingly vanished.

In the very next moment, the rising whine of what sounded like a 747 jet turbine accelerating up to full power caused the entire crowd to glance down a bit lower. About knee-high level, to be precise.

There, spinning with incredible velocity in her paws a miniature representation of the Scythe, stood a toy plush rabbit. Virtually all of the Americans there instantly recognized who this was, even though that small, furry plaything wasn't displaying its normal fluorescent pink color. Nor did it possess its usual burden carried at the front of this advertising concept's torso. On the other hand, the female rabbit was wearing a distinctly familiar set of sunglasses and sandals, which quite made up for the altered pelt tinted a bright yellow shade.

From out of nowhere, undoubtedly caused by the summons of the recently cast chaos spell, a deep, rhythmic rumble commenced to shiver every molecule in existence at the desert location: the air, the ground, the entire bodies of both the human and demonic forces.

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

Her legs blurring into action, the blonde rabbit shot off directly towards the advancing front line of the monstrous army just a mile away ahead. Moving so fast it turned into a golden streak along the way, this toy hit dead-on the first demon in its path...and kept going. Behind the rabbit now well over halfway through the entire mob of panicking fiends, various unearthly body parts sprayed upwards, showing the wake of where the Scythe was continuously reaping its bloody harvest.

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

As for the New Council forces…all of them were flat on the ground where they'd fallen, curled up while holding their ribs aching from uncontrollable laughter.

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

Faith managed to gasp to where a guffawing Xander was lying next to her, "Ya know B's gonna make us all pay later 'bout this forever, right?"

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

Through his incessant giggles, the one-eyed man snorted, "Totally worth it, Faith!"

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

The two New Council leaders then rolled over to gleefully watch together where in the distance with incredible speed and strength a thousandfold beyond any mere gathering of Slayers, a rapidly-dwindling demon army was being further laid to waste by Buffy the Energizer Bunny.

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

ZZZZZZZZZZ

Author's Note: See the link as set forth since ffnet won't allow it in its original style: cmgestore dot symbol (no spaces) com slash symbol (no spaces) eng5 slash symbol (no spaces) Elements slash symbol (no spaces) v8877 dot symbol (no spaces) jpg


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